


On The Knocking At The Gate In Macbeth

by fengirl88



Series: Remembrances of days foregone [6]
Category: Slings & Arrows
Genre: Community: fan_flashworks, M/M, Triple Drabble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-11
Updated: 2018-09-11
Packaged: 2019-07-10 03:52:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15941225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fengirl88/pseuds/fengirl88
Summary: Darren maintains that the Porter scene is a waste of space.





	On The Knocking At The Gate In Macbeth

**Author's Note:**

> written for the Knock challenge at fan_flashworks, and part of the backstory 'verse beginning with [A Looker On](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14822303)

Darren maintains that the Porter scene is a waste of space. And yes, thank you, he _has_ read De Quincey’s “On The Knocking At The Gate In _Macbeth_ ”, and that sentimental claptrap about seeing your wife or daughter recovering from a faint tells you all you need to know about De Quincey’s abilities as a critic. Of course Geoffrey’s production of _Macbeth_ leaves the Porter scene in, and his direction of it is adequate and better than most. But Darren was right to cut it in his version, a decision made entirely on artistic grounds, as Darren’s decisions always are.

The audience titter dutifully at the Porter’s speech about the effects of drinking: “Lechery, sir, it provokes, and unprovokes; it provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance: therefore, much drink may be said to be an equivocator with lechery: it makes him, and it mars him; it sets him on, and it takes him off; it persuades him, and disheartens him; makes him stand to, and not stand to; in conclusion, equivocates him in a sleep, and, giving him the lie, leaves him.” Oh, Darren could a tale unfold about drink and lechery and the great Geoffrey Tennant…

Except that he couldn’t, not really. Because the last thing he remembers with any clarity from that long-ago drunken night is biting Geoffrey’s neck and Geoffrey shoving his hand down Darren’s pants. And then waking up on that _if my memory serves, rather purgatorial sofa_ (Darren’s _Dangerous Liaisons_ and _Marat/Sade_ fusion was a triumph, whatever the Toronto Star said to the contrary) with a black eye and a split lip and his back giving him hell, and Geoffrey looking at him as if he’d just woken up from a really bad dream and found he was still having it.


End file.
